WORLD : City May Rescind Hitler Honor
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POTSDAM, East Germany — Adolf Hitler and Hermann Goering will lose their honorary citizenship of Potsdam if a City Hall proposal is approved next month, the East German news agency ADN reported today.
The Nazi dictator and his air force chief were awarded the honor in 1933, but it was never revoked because of a 57-year administrative mess and the ousted Communist leadership’s fear of causing a public scandal, ADN said.
Records showed that officials assumed shortly after World War II that the issue had been settled under decrees issued by the Soviet military administrators of what is now East Germany.
However, those Red Army decrees on “de-Nazification” made no specific mention of the honorary citizenships, the agency said.
“When the problem finally came to light in the City Council in 1988, the matter was quietly relegated to the archives,” ADN said.
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